


One Last Hurrah

by jenesaisquoi



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Minor Character Death, not a very happy fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-04 02:26:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5317010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenesaisquoi/pseuds/jenesaisquoi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A last hurrah: the final appearance or effort, especially at the end of a career.</p><p>At the end of the Republic, in the nascent days of the Galactic Empire, Cody and Yularen face their respective roles in the new Galaxy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Last Hurrah

Trooper CC-2224 walked through the halls of the imperial battlecruiser on which he was stationed. He did not rush, as was befitting his status as commander, but walked with purpose and was thankful his helmet hid his near-present look of disdain toward the enlisted troopers who walked along casually. Where was the discipline? When he had served with his brothers in the Grand Army of the Republic there was no slouching, no lounging. It would be an affront to what made them them, to the...the Generals under which they served.

Turning the corner and entering the elevator, Trooper CC-2224 could feel the headache build as it always did when his thoughts wandered to the Clone Wars. He knew he carried a certain nostalgia for the War and it may be clouding his judgement, but he felt as though he should remember more from that time, more faces, more names. Some days he could barely remember much about his commanding officer or specific battles. A while ago, when a few enlisted troopers had actually taken the time to talk to him and CC-2224 was inclined to humour them, he could only vaguely recall the events.

He had described the General under whom he had served as stalwart and disciplined, sharp in mind and precise in battle. He was not ruthless but worked to leave little room for error. His General had worked closely with another general and CC-2224 had been friends with his second in command he felt.

“Yeah, what was his name? CP-1000 like a droid?” The enlisted men had joked, a sneer underlying every word.

“We ain’t no clankers!” he yelled back, pausing for a moment. Clankers, that’s what they had called the Separatist droids wasn’t it?

“Clankers?” they asked.

Lost in thought he chose to ignore them, could only recall a shaved head and a disciplined attitude that did not match the General he served, and yet...

“Rex,” he said. “His name was Rex.”

“So he wasn’t a clone?” another had asked, seeming caught off guard.

“No he was my brother,” he tried to explain. “Clones have names.”

“They do?” one asked.

“What’s yours?” another asked.

“I...I don’t know,” he replied, trying to grasp at tendrils of fading memory.

“Tch, clones,” a third replied. “You’re all going senile, the lot of you.”

That must be it, he had thought. Accelerated aging had been a part of their genetic code after all. Though he felt like he was missing something with that explanation, some days he could recall his early days on Kamino with stunning clarity, he remembered his training overseen by a kindly but strict General, a togrutan female who seemed to have an otherworldliness about her. Like the rest of the generals, they were different, mystical almost, conundrums. They were—they had—individuality was not encouraged by his creators but the Generals had influenced them, they had—they were—

A name had floated up from the dark areas of his mind. Cody. Who’s name could that be? He didn’t dare hope that it was his own name, but it felt right, felt like the names Rex and Oddball, Hawk, Wolfe, Keno—

CC-2224 shook himself, trying to bring himself out of his headache and musings, back to the present before he had to step out of the elevator and report to the bridge. He found himself giving in to his feelings, desperately wishing he could remember his past in greater detail. Was it amnesia, senility? Or was it something far more sinister, as clone nightmares tended to suggest? He had tried to shake the utter confusion that clung to him after that conversation with the enlisted troopers, but it had stayed to torment him. The name Cody sang to him whenever his mind wandered, whenever he introduced himself or verified his identity. Maybe it had really been his name before reconditioning.

— — —

“Why do we even still have them lying around?” His second in command complained, not for the first time.

“They’re still competent soldiers.”

“Yeah, for old men.”

Admiral Yularen glared at his subordinate, who noticed quickly to his credit, and began to backtrack.

“Not that old men aren’t good soldiers! You are a shining example of a soldier after all, sir.”

Admiral Yularen looked at him, waiting for the moment when the man would realize what he had said.

“What I meant was that the clones are obsolete, sir. Not that old people are obsolete,” he added quickly. “Not that you’re old either. Sir.”

Admiral Yularen sniffed. He wasn’t so caught up in the new imperial army to ignore the irony of a man complaining about obsolete soldiers when he could never hope to match their discipline or battle skill in his lifetime. No, it was a different galaxy Yularen accepted. His soldiers were half as competent, twice as mouthy, and the Imperial Army was no where near as welcome as the Grand Army had been. Regardless of what he thought of the changes, he knew where his loyalties lay and had long ago chosen to support Emperor Palpatine in his endeavours for the glory of the Empire.

“Obsolete or not, they are a resource which the Empire will continue to use until they no longer serve a function.” he replied.

“Yes, sir,” his subordinate accepted grudgingly. “But they’re unstable, sir.”

Admiral Yularen suppressed a sigh. What he wouldn’t give to finish his admiralty quicker and enter into his waiting seat at the Imperial Security Bureau tomorrow.

“Commander Fitzril,” he said, “where are we going?”

“Sir?”

“Our destination, what is it?”

“Rythkin, sir.”

“And what is the most notable aspect of this system?”

“It doesn’t have one, sir,” Fitzril replied, almost sullenly. “It’s mid-rim, but is so out of the way that it may as well be the outer-rim.”

“Exactly,” Admiral Yularen said.

His commander looked at him perplexed.

The Admiral sighed. What was the Imperial Academy teaching them these days?

“Why would we not use obsolete and unstable soldiers for a routine surveillance on a planet of little importance?”

The commander’s eyes lit up. Finally.

“But then why are we going out here?” he asked. Admiral Yularen suppressed his desires to yell and scream. Hadn’t he sent this man the mission briefing? Even the so-called senile clones were able to—

He stopped himself. Now was not the time to get nostalgic over old wars. The Jedi and the clones of the Grand Army of the Republic may have run an efficient team, but their time was over. The Jedi had betrayed the republic and the clones were living out their artificially accelerated lives. Regardless of Admiral Yularen’s respect for the military capabilities these groups held—and wasn’t that ironic for the long gone Jedi?—they were not to be celebrated.

Clone trooper Cody took this moment to make his appearance on the bridge. Yularen had once again forgotten the clone’s numerical designation, with a twist of irony that he acknowledged. Obsolete they may be, but he had known the clone as Cody for the past several years. He would not describe himself as a sentimental man, but his military history and loyalty had a way of creeping up on him and drawing it out. There was definitely a two in the designation number, he felt.

“Admiral, Commander,” Cody said, saluting and then moving to parade rest with his helmet at his side.

Every once in a while Yularen felt like he wanted to break protocol and image alike, to turn to his enlisted men and yell ‘This is how a soldier stands!’ but he would not. He blamed this brash recklessness that sometimes seemed to seep into his character on the Jedi General Skywalker he had served with so long ago. Not Cody though, the man had taken after General Kenobi in most ways. He remembered once, long ago, being surprised that the clone Rex had turned out as level headed as he had considering the individual Jedi’s traits that their clones tended to adopt.

“Commander,” Yularen replied with a nod. “Let’s get to the briefing then.”

“Shouldn’t we wait for the General?” Cody asked.

“What General?” Fitzril replied, looking thoroughly bewildered.

Yularen suspected that much of the animosity toward the clones was due to the enlisted men not knowing what to do with them. The clones, now more than ever, were thoroughly disarming. They were still fearsome fighters, with excellent military discipline but would lapse into vacant-eyed stares, forgetting where they were and even who they were. Reconditioning was not going as well as Lord Vader had hoped, it seemed.

“General...General Ke...I,” Cody paused, then shook his head and brought his head up again with eyes that were much more present. “Ready for the briefing, sir.”

“Good,” Yularen replied, picking up the datapad. “CT-3855’s squad has been manning an old surveillance outpost on Rythkin with little activity in the sector. Two days ago, we lost contact and no one has reported in since.”

“An attack?” Fitzril asked.

“Perhaps,” Yularen replied and honestly, why did he bother sending advance intel anyway? “We have also lost contact with two other outposts. This will be the first to be investigated. Commander,” he turned to Cody, “you will take a battalion down to the planet to investigate while we await the arrival of Lord Vader. You will bring recorder droids with you as well.”

“Understood, sir.”

“Good,” Yularen replied. “Dismissed.”

Cody saluted, turned with military precision, and left the bridge.

“Lord Vader’s coming here?” Fitzril asked, not with a small amount of fear.

Yularen, for once, did not blame the man. Lord Vader was an imposing, hulking machine of a man who commanded a near paralyzing fear. There was, in addition to his general being, something that seemed almost familiar to Yularen which only unsettled him further.

“He is scheduled to arrive within the next hour,” Yularen answered.

The commander shuddered, threw a casual salute and made his way over to his usual position on the bridge. Such lack of discipline, Yularen thought as he turned to look out the viewport. He had dealt with Lord Vader enough to assume that he would live through the encounter, but that did not mean he didn’t feel every muscle in his body tense in preparation.

— — —

“Alright men,” CC-2224 called out, bringing the attention of his men to him. “Check your weapons and armour. There doesn’t seem to be anything hostile but let’s prepare for anything!”

He looked out over the assembled battalion, one of the last all-clone squads. Riding down to the planet in two old gunships, he couldn’t help feeling an inexplicable sadness. Often, he would have impressions of major assaults from the Clone Wars, hundreds of gunships hurtling down to the surface of a planet in one grand offensive with his brothers. The great Generals, that seemed so otherworldly to him, jumping out of the ships a moment before they touched down with their brilliant swords flashing about.

 _Jedi_ , his mind provided and he tried to mentally flinch back. _Traitor_ , the next words came, _you’re traitors_. He didn’t know whether they were or he was the traitor, but he knew that it terrified him in a way that had nothing to do with his usual battle nerves.

He had already briefed his men before getting into the gunships, so he had nothing to do or say but wait with foreign words flitting around in his mind. By the time the ships were nearing the planet’s surface, CC-2224 was sure that he was going to turn into the gibbering mess of confusion.

“Just like old times, eh Commander?” one of his men asked him.

“What?” he replied, shaking himself out of his thoughts.

“Don’t you remember, Commander?” another one chimed in. “This place looks exactly like Geonosis.”

CC-2224 looked out the open blast doors and he could indeed see large open areas covered in nothing but dust, with some large rock formations that housed the outpost they were heading to.

“What was Geonosis like?” Yet another, who must has been stationed in another sector, asked.

“Dusty,” he replied. The man gave him an unimpressed look.

“It was always a tough one,” CT-5466 added.

“That it was,” CC-2224 said. “The second time was supposed to be a three front attack to clear the area so that the main force could land. None of the teams managed it successfully but we got it done in the end, right boys?”

“Yes sir!” the ones who had been with him replied and it gave him a genuine smile.

“The problem came after we took the planet though,” CT-5466 reminded him.

“What happened really? We only ever heard rumours. ” CT-6679 asked.

“We met the queen,” CC-2224 replied.

CT-6679’s eyes grew wide.

“Yup. She was a nasty piece of work,” CC-2224 continued. “That temple was terrible. There were bugs everywhere but they wouldn’t die like normal ones so you either had to run or be buried under reanimated creeps. That whole place was a maze.”

His men were watching him with concentrated attention now. The ones who had been on Geonosis were trying to suppress their shudders. The ones who had not been there were looking at each other with worried expression and occasionally glancing around themselves as if the bug-like creatures would sprout out of the very metal under their feet.

“Well, I hope that this planet is nothing like Geonosis then,” CT-6679 said.

They touched down and the conversation quickly ended, replaced by orders and squad formations.

As the battalion made its way to the outpost, CC-2224 couldn’t help but notice the fear that had crawled through his veins upon thinking of Geonosis. They had found terrible things in those tunnels and were lucky to have made it out alive. If Rythkin reminded them so much of that forsaken planet, what would they find once they reached the silent outpost?

He took a deep breath and let go of his fear like he had been taught—Taught? Taught by whom?—and focused on climbing the stairs that led to the outpost. Once inside, he almost found himself wishing to give up his rank and career to be anywhere else.

“There are bodies, Admiral,” he comm’ed the main ship. “Setting up recorder droids now.”

His men got to work, and soon the battalion was moving through the complex silently, communicating with hand signals alone. The complex was not large and they made it to the command centre in a relatively short time. Wherein they found the rest of the bodies of the eight troopers manning this outpost, dead clone troopers fallen and mostly centred around the main console.

“I don’t like this,” CT-5466 said. “This one shot himself.”

Taking a deep breath, CC-2224 made his way over to the centre console. He punched in his authorization number for the security holos and brought up the last two days.

_“We did it!” a clone trooper ran into the command centre and up to the squad leader. “We’re the traitors!”_

_CC-2224 felt his body seize, felt like his heart would stop. He couldn’t breath. He hadn’t felt this scared since his first drop into combat. Years old clone nightmares felt like they were pushing to rise to the surface._

_“Get a hold of yourself, man!” the squad leader yelled. “What are you talking about?”_

_“The nightmares are real, the nightmares are real, real, real, it’s happening again. Evil. Evil from the start,” the man rambled on, drawing the rest of the eight men around him._

_“What’s he talking about, Captain?”_

_“Maybe the nightmares that we all have?”_

_“They said they would stop.”_

_“Maybe he needs more reconditioning.”_

_“No!” the agitated man yelled.”No! I will not go back. Won’t go back, won’t kill anymore, won’t betray my friends. No!”_

_“Easy soldier,” the squad leader tried to soothe the man.”You haven’t killed anyone, you’re not going to kill any friends.”_

_The man looked up at him, tears in his wild eyes._

_“We already did,” he said, his voice quiet and sad. “We killed them. The Generals. The Jedi who led us into battle, into war, and made sure we got out with them. Who trusted us! We killed the Jedi.”_

Through the holo, CC-2224 saw his men flinch, looking much like the men in the holo itself.

“The Jedi,” one whispered. A chorus taken up by many others.

_In the holo, the squad leader was desperately trying to deny what his soldier had said._

_“No we—we’re good soldiers. Good soldiers follow orders.”_

_The others in the video repeated this muttering, giving an eerie echoing cast to the holo._

_“I killed her!” one finally shouted. “She had just saved my brother and I turned and I shot her in the head! Oh god, oh no, no, no!” he screamed and raised the blaster to his head. He fell to the floor with an audible thump._

_“General Secura!” Another one yelled._

_Soon, the scene in the holo had devolved to a group of crazed men, screaming or muttering to themselves, some arguing with each other. It continued, until only the squad leader was left, spewing a litany of names over and over._

_“Tups, Fives knew, good soldiers, not like Slick. Slick was the traitor, not us. But I shot him, I shot General Yoda, I shot—I shot! Good soldiers, traitors are good soldiers. Bad. Bad. General Yoda taught us, believed in us. Bad soldiers. Traitors. The nightmares are real.”_

The recording ended with the death of the squad leader, but no one noticed. The battalion that had come to investigate was fairing no better than those on the holo but CC-2224—CC... He couldn’t do anything to help his men. _‘Slick? Slick’s the traitor?’_ ran through his head over and over. He had to warn...he had to warn someone.

“Christophsis,” he whispered, trying to understand why a long ago battle was important now. “Rex?” He asked, looking around but only saw his brothers clutching their heads or yelling or muttering.

 _“Commander Cody, get your men out of there now!”_ He heard Admiral Yularen over the comms.

“Cody,” he said. “Cody, Cody, Cody, Cody.” That was his name. Of course it was his name. Why had he forgotten?

Around him, he was vaguely aware of shots being fired, screams of terror from his men.

“I wanted to shoot him!” one of his men yelled.

“I tried to shoot him,” CC-22—CC-—Cody said. “I shot General Kenobi!”

He gripped the blaster in his hand, bringing it up.

— — —

Too late did Admiral Yularen realize his mistake. Through the droids’ feeds, he saw as Cody brought his blaster to his head and pulled the trigger. This seemed to be the catalyst for his remaining men to follow suit.

“Blast,” Yularen said, distinctly aware of Lord Vader’s terrifying stare. 

“I suppose,” the being began, “that repurposing the clones will not be possible. I’m terminating the program.”

“But sir! That’s almost a thousand troopers we’ll have to replace!” Yularen protested, before he had a chance to think his words through. He was not one to test his place with Lord Vader, but he had been in charge of this little experiment for long enough. Would it reflect badly on his review? Harm his chances of the formerly guaranteed seat?

“Then we will just have to increase recruitment numbers, won’t we Admiral?” Lord Vader said, in a chilling tone that was coupled with movements so familiar Yulren almost couldn’t speak. How could he feel any kind of familiarity with something so terrifying?

“Yes, sir,” he replied, trying to reign in his emotions and actions. He would not be killed this day.

“I suppose it could not be helped,” Lord Vader mused. And wasn’t that somehow even more terrifying? “Some clones had always been defective, the reconditioning must have pushed them all too far. At least this time I won’t have to chase—”

Yularen waited for him to finish, but there was nothing forthcoming from the dark figure. A long ago memory of chasing a clones through the streets of Coruscant with... Could this be? There had been so many Jedi that day though. Lord Vader could also be referring to another incident altogether separate from the Jedi. He would not chance his life nor his career to question the identity of the man who unsettled him so.

“Do we give them a funeral?” Commander Fizril asked.

Lord Vader turned to him, freezing the commander in place.

“Commander Cody was...” Lord Vader trailed off, looking at the holo feeds. Yularen could have sworn he felt the air grow colder. “The project is over, the clone troopers are no more. Admiral Yularen, you will report to ISB once preparations for this ship’s comamnd have been completed.”

With that, Lord Vader swept out of the bridge. Yularen was left to stare at the holo feeds for a moment longer. This was certainly not how he had expected the clones to end their service, but he was thankful he could finally get his career back on track. With a sigh, he turned away from the feeds.

“Commander Fizril, take some men down to burn the bodies,” Yularen said. It was all he would do for fellow veterans. “Assign a team to this outpost. We will inform the remaining clones of their dismissal upon our return to base.”

“What if they ask why no one came back?”

“Tell them it was a virus.”

**Author's Note:**

> Well that was depressing. This is probably not very canon, but I couldn't get the idea of Yularen witnessing the collapse of the clones out of my head. I also loved the clones too much, and found them too loyal, to accept that they would hold themselves to a reckoning if they ever realized what they had done. Also I'd just like to tout my own horn and say I love the title because I was having a really hard time finding one, but it also makes it so sad...
> 
> Saying I hope you enjoyed sounds a bit sadistic, so I'll leave it at: Thanks for reading! :))


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